A Radical Proposal For The Seattle Mariners

Jeff Sullivan · October 18, 2013 at 5:31 pm · Filed Under Mariners 

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18 Responses to “A Radical Proposal For The Seattle Mariners”

  1. The_Waco_Kid on October 18th, 2013 5:45 pm

    Hahaha

  2. Liam on October 18th, 2013 5:54 pm

    I loved the “You’ve tried the rest; now try no one.”

  3. Ralph_Malph on October 18th, 2013 6:40 pm

    I feel like I’ve seen this PowerPoint somewhere before…

  4. Westside guy on October 18th, 2013 7:43 pm

    So the starting nine would be the nine best fighters? 😀

  5. goalieump413 on October 18th, 2013 7:59 pm

    A slightly less radical approach: Raul Ibanez – player/manager.

    After all, who’s gonna answer post game questions?

  6. spokaneman on October 18th, 2013 10:08 pm

    “Complications: Existence of Competitors”

    I never thought of it that way. What if the Mariners were the only team? Then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. Could it really be that simple!??!

  7. Reuben on October 18th, 2013 10:36 pm

    If you can’t give me realistic playoff odds, give me innovation in the name of science.

  8. ira on October 18th, 2013 10:45 pm

    A team without a manager isn’t going to be mismanaged.

  9. Doug on October 18th, 2013 11:17 pm

    I think it’s a great idea. For scientific, more or less, support for the idea listen to this podcast:

    http://freakonomics.com/2012/12/27/how-much-does-a-good-boss-really-matter-full-transcript/

  10. diderot on October 19th, 2013 12:30 am

    A shame you’re not old enough to remember the Chicago Cubs’ College of Coaches.

  11. djw on October 19th, 2013 7:25 am

    I immediately thought of that episode toward the end of the run of the American version of The Office, after Michael left and his first replacement (played by Will Farrell) was in the hospital. Productivity was way up, everyone was getting along, etc.

    Doug’s not wrong; there’s a lot of evidence that in many different fields, less interaction with and lower density of bosses tends to be correlated with greater productivity. However, there’s a bit of an unanswered a correlation/causation question here, of course, so it’s difficult to draw strong conclusions, but it the theory seems sound to me. Most people perform worse under stress, which is something bosses breathing down your neck produces.

    For baseball, I think a general ‘strategy guide’ from the FO (ie, bunt under the following circumstances, etc), but with the understanding that you’re professionals, you should feel free to , while taking the book seriously, deviate from it at your discretion. Pitching coach has final say about removing and replacing pitchers.

  12. LongDistance on October 19th, 2013 11:54 am

    Hey… if Microsoft can try it, why not the Ms?

  13. ChrisFB on October 20th, 2013 6:13 pm

    I am very glad that my now once-every-couple-weeks peek into the Mariners specifically and baseball in general, included this.Thanks as always for finding humor in the situation, and for presenting what seems to be in hindsight a fairly obvious suggestion (i.e. one of those things that’s funny because it makes one do a forehead-slap and say “I wish I’d thought of that!”).

    Some random thoughts:

    – I am completely behind goalieump413’s suggestion above of having Raul as a player/manager.I thought of that weeks ago myself, and to me falls under the heading of “how could it really do more damage at this point”. If they did this I might actually buy tickets to Opening Day next year.

    – I would also buy tickets to Opening Day next year if Blowers volunteers to manage.

    – The no-manager thing opens the door to a long-anticipated “be a manager for a game” promotion during each homestand. Doubly fun if this aligns with a Salute to Kids weekend.

    – Continuing with promotions: they should bring in guest managers. Consider:
    1. When the Rockies play in interleague, Rene Lachemann can switch sides for a game.
    2. They can do a “Weekend at Bernie’s” thing by propping up Dick Williams in the dugout with shades on and see if anyone notices.
    2a. This is also the only way I’d be alright with Dusty Baker.
    3. They can announce Lou is managing, and then have him appear on the giant MarinerVision screen over Skype. He then gets into enough of a rant pre-game that one of the umps ejects him while lineups are exchanged. A hidden cannon then fires a base out onto the field, and the M’s save the money of having to fly Lou in from Florida.
    4. They can bring Ichiro back to manage for a game. He’d say nothing to the media, nothing to his players, sit quietly in the dugout to himself the entire game, and many fans would blame him for whatever happened during the game no matter what he did that day. (In other words, it’d be like old times.)

    – If they decide to go with no true manager, they’d still need to have SOMEone performing that duty at specific times as laid out by the official rules. So logically what they’re really doing for an entire season is making a game-time decision every day about who will be the Designated Manager.
    a) The DM is decided on by player vote during batting practice; in the event of a tie it is decided on by the Moose.
    b) The DM has the option of creating the lineup either new school (in descending order of wOBA) or old school (by spreading the names of the 25-man roster in a 5×5 grid and let a chicken select 9 of them at random).
    c) The DM’s sole duties will be filling out the lineup card, talking to the press before and after the game, make pitching changes, and get tossed when the situation warrants. (Just like now!)
    c.1) Note: when to get tossed could be a complex formula based on current losing streak or number of games out of first place.
    d) During the game the DM can, optionally, sit behind a cardboard screen with a dragon on the front and lots of statistics about armor class and saving throws on the back.

  14. qwerty on October 20th, 2013 7:21 pm

    In true M’s fashion, bring in about 5 manager candidates to Spring Training. The one who has the best Spring, gets the job!

  15. cougar9000 on October 21st, 2013 8:03 am

    My two favorite bullets are “Existence of competitors” and “More room in dugout”.

  16. maqman on October 23rd, 2013 11:36 am

    Just merge responsibilities and have a Manager/Moose.

  17. PitchersRule on October 23rd, 2013 2:07 pm

    Tim should have been a Mariner before. I don’t buy any mumbo jumbo that degrades one of the game’s premier pitchers. His ability AND his grade A competitive history make him a great signing for the Giants. We will get this year’s Harangue/Joe Saunders rejects from a GM who reeks.

  18. Mathball on October 23rd, 2013 9:14 pm

    Because of the all important “Win” stat for pitchers, it is only fair that the starting pitcher gets to pick out their lineups for the day.

    And bullpen by committee will actually be a committee.

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